Roger Waters doesn’t shies away from speaking his mind. The former Pink Floyd bassist and vocalist was never exactly shy of expressing his opinions and putting noses out of joint in the process (not least those of his ex-bandmates). However, he’s become crankier and more outspoken as the years have gone by, as his controversial proclamations on everything from Israel to the Russian invasion of Ukraine prove.
Compared to that, putting the boot into AC/DC and Van Halen is relatively tame. Even so, there aren’t many people who would throw shade in the direction of two of rock’n’roll’s biggest sacred cows. Yet that’s just what Waters did when he appeared on The Joe Rogan Hour podcast in 2022.
Reflecting on his own musical tastes, Waters told Rogan via Louder Sound: “[I’m] not really interested in loud rock ‘n’ roll, which some people are and they love it, but I couldn’t care less about AC/DC or Eddie Van Halen or any of that stuff.
“It’s just, who? I don’t go, ‘Who?’ because obviously I know the name,” he continued. “And I’m sure Eddie’s brilliant and a great guitar player and wonderful. It just doesn’t interest me.”
Back in 1999, Waters appeared on the soundtrack of Italian arthouse movie La Leggenda del Pianista Sull’Oceano (released in the US as The Legend Of 1900). While the bulk of the soundtrack featured music from revered Italian composer Ennio Morricone, it also included the slow-burning Waters song Lost Boys Calling – his first new music since the Amused To Death album six years earlier.
